We Get Blamed Again

[redstone14]

Long Islanders Fleeing for Lower Tax Havens

Monday, 11 Nov 2013 11:26 AM

By George J. Marlin

The future does not bode well for Long Island taxpayers.

State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli recently designated Nassau and Suffolk counties as exhibiting “significant fiscal stress” and both “have big issues to grapple with in the future."

Suffolk officials, so far, have failed to get their arms around their structural deficit. The county ran up a deficit of $156 million in 2012 and projects a $100 million shortage in 2013.

Despite the imposition of a control period by the Nassau Interim Finance Authority in January 2011, and despite a public employee wage freeze the county requested and received — it saved $215 million between 2012 and 2013 and is projected to save $185 million in 2014 — Nassau continues to incur GAAP operating budget deficits.

A NIFA analysis of the Nassau County 2014-2017 Multi-Year Financial Plan projects operating deficits of $104 million in fiscal year 2014, $157 million in fiscal year 2015, $199 million in fiscal year 2016 and $255 million in fiscal year 2017. It appears the county will not keep its 2011 promise to have a GAAP balanced budget in 2015.

The gloomy fiscal outlooks, plus high property taxes and a weak job market, are taking their toll. Between July 2010 and July 2012, the percentage of people on Long Island over 65 years of age increased by 4 percent while the percentage of people under 30 decreased by 4 percent. Many young people who go away to college are not returning. Struggling middle-class families are seeking employment opportunities in thriving low-tax states like Texas.

These phenomena leave retiring Long Island baby boomers and other seniors living on fixed incomes holding the bag, stuck paying a larger slice of the tax pie.

America’s leading political analyst, Michael Barone, in his excellent new book, "Shaping the Nation: How Surges of Migration Transformed America and Its Politics," confirms these demographic trends.

In places like Long Island, he observes, “high taxes produce revenues to finance handsome benefits and pensions for public employee union members . . . It’s hard to see how this benefits middle-class people making their livings in the private sector.”

So, Barone concludes, people are moving to low-tax states “that are providing jobs and living space where they can pursue their dreams and escape places that burden them with high costs and provide few middle-class amenities in return.”

This helps explain why the population in Texas, between 1970 and 2010, increased 160 percent to 25 million, while New York’s population went up only 8 percent, from 18 to 19 million.

Here are some other interesting comparisons between New York and Texas:

Number of jobs created between April 2012 and April 2013: New York 111,000, Texas 326,000

Top state income tax: New York 8.82 percent, Texas zero percent
2012 building permits issued: New York 24,872, Texas 135,514

Ranking among states for best business environments: New York No. 49, Texas No. 1

Rank among states, based on cost of living: New York 47, Texas 9
Percentage of labor force in unions: New York 23.2 percent, Texas, 5.7 percent

Dollar value of exports in 2012: New York $81.4 billion, Texas $264.7 billion

This comparison explains why middle class Long Islanders are racing to the exits. And if elected county officials in Nassau and Suffolk don’t begin to govern, fail to take on the vested interests and don’t make the tough cost-cutting decisions that produce genuinely balanced budgets, it will only get worse.

Expect skyrocketing tax rates and the continued flight of the middle class to greener economic pastures.


George J. Marlin, a former executive director of the porta uthority of N.Y. and N.J., is the author of "The American Catholic Voter: Two Hundred Years of Political Impact." He also is a columnist for TheCatholicThing.org and the Long Island Business News.


www.newsmax.com/George-J-Marlin/tax-taxpayers-york-texas/2013/11/11/id/535969

[doughnut]

Had nothing to do with the 2 trillion Wall Street stole from people huhhh. Should be an interesting conclusion to Nifa talks.

[doughnut]

In places like Long Island, he observes, “high taxes produce revenues to finance handsome benefits and pensions for public employee union members . . . It’s hard to see how this benefits middle-class people making their livings in the private sector.” Funny, when the private sector needs the very services that enable it to survive, its proponents fail to see how it benefits middle class people. Hey asshole who brought the economy to the brink of collapse, ohh that's right the private sector, guess that didn't benefit the middle class either. The sooner the wheels fall off this bus the better.

[opie]

They stole 17 trillion from taxpayers for corporate bailouts.....

[onthejob]

libn.com/2008/11/26/newsday-union-spars-with-cablevision-over-pension-benefits/

Newsday union spars with Cablevision over pension

The honeymoon is over.

Threatened with another round of job cuts and simmering over the loss of retirement benefits, Newsday’s 700 union employees have grown wary of the newspaper’s new owners, Cablevision Systems Corp., which acquired the daily over the summer.

Union workers have not received retirement benefits since 2007, when Sam Zell took over Tribune Co., which owned Newsday. But when Newsday was sold to Cablevision, it became the responsibility of the Dolan Family and Local 406 to cut a pension deal. That hasn’t happened.

At the same time, non-union workers continue to receive a 5 percent match on their retirement accounts.

According to their contract with Newsday, the newspaper union must renegotiate retirement benefits with each new owner.

So far, talks between Cablevision and Local 406 of the Graphic Communications Conference, a division of the Teamsters Union, which represents print shop, delivery and editorial workers, have gone nowhere.

One Newsday staffer said “weak language” in the union’s contract precipitated the pension problem, but ownership could have “acted in good faith” to make it right. Instead, the staffer said, there is a “level of antagonism” from ownership.

“There was a lot of hope when Cablevision took over,” the employee said. “Now there’s uncertainty.”

Local 406 President Mike O’Connor said Newsday management has been “crying the blues” about the economy during recent negotiations and told him there might be more layoffs at the newspaper before the end of the year.

Newsday has already axed more than 150 employees this spring, before Tribune Co. sold the newspaper to Cablevision.

“They said they’ve got to try to find the money,” O’Connor said.

Newsday reported it earned nearly $90 million last year on revenue of about $500 million.

Newsday issued this statement on the pension impasse: “As ruled by arbitration earlier this year, the provision of retirement benefits must be negotiated by the union on behalf of its members, and we are engaged in discussions with them on this topic right now.”

Cablevision bought Newsday for $650 million from Zell, a Chicago-based financier, after cable mogul Charles Dolan easily outbid Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. and Daily News owner Mort Zuckerman by $70 million. Zell had acquired Tribune, which includes Newsday, The Hartford Courant, Baltimore Sun, The Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Cubs baseball team, for about $8 billion in 2007.

In its purchase, Cablevision took control of Newsday’s print, online and affiliated publications. Tribune Co. held onto Newsday’s real estate and printing facilities, which were valued at about $20 million.

According to a Newsday report, the deal was financed with $650 million in bonds underwritten by Bank of America. Tribune Co. received $612 million in cash and $18 million in rent payments from Cablevision.

Cablevision serves about 3 million homes in the New York metropolitan area. The company also owns Madison Square Garden and its sports teams, the New York Knicks, Rangers and Liberty. Cablevision also operates Radio City Music Hall, the Beacon Theatre and the Chicago Theatre, and owns and operates Clearview Cinemas.

Local 406 represents 2,000 full- and part-time workers throughout the country.

Newsday is going after our union because it is/was the strongest union on the island. Dolan figures if we go down, they all follow. He is probably right.

[fakelottotix]

Mr. George J. Marlin is the Chairman of The Philadelphia Trust Company The Philadelphia Trust Company was founded in response to an increasing need for an independent private bank able to provide affluent investors and institutions with the kind of service that modern day "megabanks" and "financial supermarkets" simply cannot. Each of the Trust Company's principals and senior advisors knows first hand how difficult it can be to provide the attention and discretion every client deserves. In other words, Mr Marlins company is the bank of the 1%ers of Occupy Wall St ilk, yet 2 years went by without Jimmy or any of the other unions trying to get Ronald Stack of Lehman Brothers fame or this guy removed from the NIFA Board. These unions should be have been on the front page of every media outlet since DAY # 1 of our pay freeze calling out these World Economy collapsing Billionaires out for being the real cause of the current economic climate and not pensions and benefits, yet they all sat idly by inexplicably and did NOTHING but make a law firm richer than it already was....

[beltfed]

This isn't good news. Sorry to say this but unions are a dying breed and within the next couple of decades "may" cease to exist entirely. Unfortunately guys, I think that's the reality of it.